On this day May 7th:
1355-1,200 Jews of ToledoSpain killed by Count Henry of Trastamara.
1727-Jews were expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia
1765-HMS Victory, the ship which became the flagship of British Admiral Horatio Nelson, was launched at Chatham. The ship is now preserved at Portsmouth
1812-Robert Browning, English poet, was born in Camberwell.
1824-World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria.
1840-European Genius Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer was born in Votkinsk.
1915-German submarine U-20 sunk the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people. Winston Churchill had this passenger ship packed with munitions and had this information covertly passed to the Germans knowing they’d sink it. He was hoping to drag the US into the war, the lives of women and children meant nothing to him.
1937-The German Condor Legion, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes, arrived in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.
1945-General Alfred Jodl signed unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany’s participation in the war. The document took effect the next day.
1946-Anton Adriaan Mussert, one of the founders of the National Socialist Movement (NSB) in the Netherlands, was executed for his beliefs aged 51.
1948-V-Mann Antonius van de Waals Dutch National Socialist, was sentenced to death
1954- Indochina War: Dien Bien Phu, a major French stronghold in northwest Vietnam, fell to the communists after a 57 day heroic siege. Many of the soldiers fighting for the French against communism were ex SS.